The spikes are not worth ‘several seconds’ in the 1500

` wrote:

No, I was talking about the ORGINAL victories. The ones from 2009. Spike tech is always "improving", which is why we don't run in shoes that were made in 1970. Now, is the difference between these "super shoes" and the previous shoes 2 seconds over a mile? No chance! Maybe a millisecond or two, at most.

Where are you getting your numbers from? You're just pulling them out of your a$$.

OG Vics were no joke.

I think they might have been worth a second.

lookism wrote:

` wrote:

No, I was talking about the ORGINAL victories. The ones from 2009. Spike tech is always "improving", which is why we don't run in shoes that were made in 1970. Now, is the difference between these "super shoes" and the previous shoes 2 seconds over a mile? No chance! Maybe a millisecond or two, at most.

Where are you getting your numbers from? You're just pulling them out of your a$$.

OG Vics were no joke.

I think they might have been worth a second.

Jasaris were pretty banging too, don't sleep on those.

OG vics are the true super spikes

Random question xyz wrote:

Let me add one more thing. ‘Several seconds’ in the 1500, to quote rojo, is more or less 1% (.01 * 3:35 = 3.58333s). So, I’m going to say for argument’s sake that 1% is roughly the amount of improvement the proponents of the shoe improvement theory are suggesting. And, while that’s way more modest than some of the marathon shoe suggestions… it’s still way too aggressive. Anything close to 1% is logically suspect

1% of 3:35 is 2.15 seconds, which would still be massive.

Hobbs Joggler wrote:

Random question xyz wrote:

Let me add one more thing. ‘Several seconds’ in the 1500, to quote rojo, is more or less 1% (.01 * 3:35 = 3.58333s). So, I’m going to say for argument’s sake that 1% is roughly the amount of improvement the proponents of the shoe improvement theory are suggesting. And, while that’s way more modest than some of the marathon shoe suggestions… it’s still way too aggressive. Anything close to 1% is logically suspect

1% of 3:35 is 2.15 seconds, which would still be massive.

I messed this up massively, you are right. Then several seconds let’s say is 1.5% or 3.225s. My bad.

If you’re talking about the ORIGINAL victories then no, there is nothing different between those and spikes from the 70s other than they look cooler. Regular foam, nylon, plastic spike plate. The exact same thing they had in the 70s, 80s, 90s, etc. No one is running any faster in victories than they would in what Viren or anyone else had back then. It’s the same technology. Maybe a little more comfortable and an ounce lighter but they’re not taking 20 seconds off your 10k .

Once again, if runners want to prove people wrong about the shoes then stop wearing them.

The ‘stop wearing them to prove people wrong’ comment is not relevant to the topic:

(1) there could be a small benefit (<0.5s) that makes it worth it and would make people not want to stop wearing them but that is not ‘several seconds’

(2) even if there isn’t a benefit, people think there is so they won’t stop wearing them, and it’s not like wearers have a crystal ball and know they don’t or do matter and would be ‘proving’ anything by not wearing them

The ‘stop wearing them to prove people wrong’ comment is not relevant to the topic:

(1) there could be a small benefit (<0.5s) that makes it worth it and would make people not want to stop wearing them but that is not ‘several seconds’

(2) even if there isn’t a benefit, people think there is so they won’t stop wearing them, and it’s not like wearers have a crystal ball and know they don’t or do matter and would be ‘proving’ anything by not wearing them

It is completely relevant because when you are talking about a marginal benefit of 0.5s (where you pulled that from is a mystery, but anyway), you are in the realms of talking about no real benefit at all. Half a second can be lost or made up by any number of random racing incidents or just not being comfortable in a shoe. In essence, a benefit of 0.5s is a completely undetectable gain. Athletes would stick with shoes that they feel more comfortable in, and companies like On, Under Armour, and Brooks would insist on their athletes using their own spikes because the Nike shoes provide no detectable advantage. Except we know that's not the case and On, etc, have determined that the Dragonfly is a significant advantage that could decide the Olympic fate of their athletes so they are allowed to forego their sponsorship requirements - imagine what it has taken for a commercial entity like On or Brooks to give up the requirement for their athletes to wear their own shoes. Brands don't come to those decisions lightly and it can only be justified if the shoes provide significant advantages. And yes, no scientific studies have yet been published but do you think these companies don't do internal testing? I know someone who worked on development of one of the road supershoes (not Nike or Adidas), and he said they were testing it against the Vaporfly in their own lab (it provided similar benefit to the original 4% but not the Next%).

This isn't just about world record times or NCAA athletes, look at times across the globe, significant PRs have been dropping in virtually every race for two years. We have a steepler running 7:25 for 3km for god's sake, Tsegay crushing times at every distance between 800m and 10k.

You know what I'd love to see? Molly Huddle running her next 5k in Dragonfly's. I would place good money she'd run the standard

It is not taking 20s off your 10k. Again, you're just throwing numbers out there with absolutely no basis.

Runners will wear anything that gives them even MARGINAL gains, like what we see here. Every professional or high level college runner will choose the spike that gives them even 0.1s over 10k. Because everything counts. But to claim that shoes take 20s+ off your 10k time is ridiculous, and until you back it up, you have no argument.

And, if there is no difference between OG vics and 70s spikes, why did everyone switch to the Vics?

Random question xyz wrote:

Monaco 2015. Pre spike. You’re telling me all these guys INCLUDING FARAH would’ve broken 3:26.00 with the spikes?????? No chance

1. Asbel KIPROP KEN 89 3:26.69 WL, PB

2. Taoufik MAKHLOUFI ALG 88 3:28.75 PB

3. Abdelaati IGUIDER MAR 87 3:28.79 PB

4. Mo FARAH GBR 83 3:28.93 SB

Don't forget, with a 1 sec per lap spike enhancement, the mile record should be sub 3:40 soon. EPICness awaits!!

Here is a photo of the WR mile run of 4:06.2 from 1942. Look at the shoes. Look at the track. The track was so chewed up in lane #1 that they ran the record in lane #2.

I’m talking about the 1500 specifically. There have been fewer crazy performances there, likewise for lower distances. Also I’m talking about track spikes not road shoes. And the specific claim is that ‘several seconds’ benefit in the 15 is absurd which your post doesn’t address.

This has been on the board before, but I'll repeat it, since a pro was putting actual numbers to the benefit. Nick Willis said the new NB super spike allowed him to run a 1200m time trial 2 seconds faster than he expected. I presume that his training/time trial efforts are consistent enough that a 2 second difference from his expectation stands out as an anomaly.

If you take that at face value as exactly 2.0 seconds per 1200m, then that suggests 2.5 seconds for 1500m (for Nick Willis in the NB super spikes at that pace YMMV).

Surely a 1/2 second difference would be hard to tell in a 1200m time trial, and he said 2 seconds, not 2.0 seconds, so you have to consider rounding. So lets just say that Willis thinks the benefit is closer to 2 seconds than 1 second or 3 seconds. Exploring the low end of that, if the benefit was 1.5 seconds for a 1200m time trial (for NB spikes on Nick Willis... YMMV), a benefit of 1.875 seconds for 1500m would still be consistent with "2 seconds for a 1200m".

https://twitter.com/nickwillis/status/1348811420167794688

` wrote:

It is not taking 20s off your 10k. Again, you're just throwing numbers out there with absolutely no basis.

Runners will wear anything that gives them even MARGINAL gains, like what we see here. Every professional or high level college runner will choose the spike that gives them even 0.1s over 10k. Because everything counts. But to claim that shoes take 20s+ off your 10k time is ridiculous, and until you back it up, you have no argument.

And, if there is no difference between OG vics and 70s spikes, why did everyone switch to the Vics?

Ah, right, Cheptegei lopped off 37 seconds in the 10k and 22 seconds from his 5k (from already world-class times) in one year on hard work and gumption. Uh huh, that seems reasonable. 3:34 1500 by a high schooler (almost 4 seconds better than Webb)? Yep, nothing abnormal about that. Just lucked out and got better genetics than any American 1500 meter runner ever. It also just happened to happen same year the Dragonfly’s were release. What a coincidence! 4 guys in the top 12 all-time American 10,000 list (including 2 faster than Olympic silver medalist Keflezighi’s once AR) since release of the nike’s fun new shoes? Nope, nothing to see here. Two NCAA 3:50 indoor miles to better the old mark by 2 seconds and put them 7 and 8 world all-time just two seconds behind the greatest miler ever (Morceli didn’t even run as fast indoor)? Just natural progression, move on.

This isn’t even taking into account every thing happening on the women’s side.

Sit back folks, this is just the beginning. Still have the entire summer and Olympics to go through.

Nike and NB pros were rocking next gen spikes in 2019. Almost all the top Nike guys had them by Prefontaine Classic, and NB folks slightly later. By Doha, next gen spikes were everywhere amongst elites. Logically then, if the shoes are so good that you slip them on and gain ~1sec per lap, the top end of world times in the season best lists for 2019 should be noticeably faster than prior years.

Men's 1500m

8 year averages prior to 2019/2019 figure/% gap between them

WL - 3:28.52 - 3:28.77 - 2019 0.12% slower

10th - 3:31.76 - 3:31.46 - 2019 0.14% faster

20th - 3:33.76 - 3:33.25 - 2019 0.24% faster

30th - 3:34.78 - 3:35.01 - 2019 0.11% slower

Men's 5000m

WL - 12:52.29 - 12:52.98 - 2019 0.09% slower

10th - 13:02.14 - 12:58.85 - 2019 0.42% faster

20th - 13:07.61 - 13:05.21 - 2019 0.30% faster

30th - 13:12.22 - 13:10.21 - 2019 0.25% faster

Haven't had the chance to run a full statistical analysis on this, and there are definitely confounding variables, but it looks like to me that next gen spikes quite possibly give a benefit, however it looks to be less than 0.5%. In real terms, that means on the high end being worth ~0.5 seconds in a 1500m, and 2-3 seconds in a 5000m. For comparison, a WA sponsored study found the next gen road shoes give a time boost around 1% on the low end, to just over 2% on the high end (which obviously can shave whole minutes off of a marathon).

This is however a limited analysis. I've built a database for times going back to 2010 for the M/W 1500 and 5000, and once this season is over will be able to compare 2021 to the 2010-2018 averages and see how this goes. I think this is probably a better indicator than looking at just the NCAA - where there are probably more confounding variables (chiefly the extraordinary number of extra 5th year seniors).

In short - next gen spikes look like they could be a definitive improvement, but are not the transformative game changers in the same way their road shoe counterparts have been. Will keep tracking.

The difference is that mediocre runners are hitting times that they wouldn't normally run.

DiffrntPerspective wrote:

The difference is that mediocre runners are hitting times that they wouldn't normally run.

Like who?

Cheptegei's WRs are 99% due to the wavelight pacing technology, not the shoes.

Those BTC 10ks are all from guys I would have expected to run that fast.

Kessler is a supreme talent. He would be better than Webb with or without the shoes.

The NCAA guys are also supreme talents, and head the benefit of an ENTIRE YEAR of base training due to COVID, not to mention the benefits of zoom school for training.

You simply have too many confounding variables, and times have not gotten faster across the board in the pro ranks. You're cherry picking only the very impressive performances and attributing it entirely due to shoes. You need to be looking at averages. On the whole, pro times are not even as good as in 2019.

Brilliant. Everyone should look at this post. The spikes are a definite improvement, but they are INCREMENTAL. You are not getting multiple seconds over the 1500m as people have been claiming. That would be absurd.

This explains a lot.

Also, why would pacing lights add this much? They're behind people for most of record attempts, and these people can usually pace well.